The United States Supreme Court has ruled Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act — which prohibited same-sex couples from legal recognition as ‘spouses’ — as “unconstitutional.”
In their ruling, which narrowly passed by a 5–4 vote, the Court verdict was that the Act is “a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment,” according to a released document. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Canada since 2005, and 12 states in the United States (as well as the District of Columbia) currently recognize same-sex marriages, including New York, Washington and California.
The majority opinion was introduced by Justice Anthony Kennedy, and was supported by four other Justices.
Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the four Justices who dissented to the ruling, described Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion as “wrong,” saying, “even setting aside traditional moral disapproval of same-sex marriages, there are many perfectly valid . . . justifying rationales for this legislation. Their existence ought to be the end of this case.”
Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act — a bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996 — defines marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife,” and, until recently, gave states the right to deny same-sex spouses federal benefits such as insurance benefits and Social Security survivor’s benefits.
The case that inspired the repeal was brought to the Supreme Court by Edith Windsor, a New York resident. Her wife, Thea Spyer, left Windsor her estate when she died in 2009. Windsor’s request for estate tax exemption from a bill which totalled $363,000 was denied under Section 3 of DOMA. Windsor filed suit in 2010.
United States President Barack Obama responded to the decision positively, describing it as “a victory for couples who have long fought for equal treatment under the law,” according to a public statement. “[DOMA] treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it.”
The ruling also effectively defeated Proposition 8 in California, a controversial ballot proposition put forth by opponents of same-sex marriage which attempted to redefine California’s marriage laws as being solely between a man and a woman.
The DOMA repeal will also have a profound effect on United States immigration laws: same-sex couples in the United States can now sponsor their spouses for green cards, and unmarried couples living in separate countries can use a fiance visa to immigrate to the United States and begin the citizenship process.
Nevertheless, same-sex marriage still faces legal difficulties in the United States; Section 2 of the Defense of Marriage Act — which allows individual states to deny recognition of same-sex marriages — still stands.
Since the DOMA repeal, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Jerry Nadler have reintroduced their Respect for Marriage Act, a proposed bill that “would fully repeal every last corrosive bit of DOMA”, according to a piece Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York junior Senator and co-sponsor of the act, wrote for The Guardian.
The bill is supported by the Obama administration, as well as former President Bill Clinton. “As the President who signed the act into law,” Clinton remarked in an article for the Washington Post in March 2013, “I have come to believe that DOMA is . . . incompatible with our Constitution.”
Though the Defense of Marriage Act remains, the repeal of Section 3 has been characterized as a victory for the broader LGBT rights movement in the United States and around the world. In the United States, support for same-sex marriage has seen a steady increase since DOMA was enacted, with supporters for same-sex marriage outnumbering detractors for the first time in 2010, according to a poll conducted by CNN.
“Children born today will grow up in a world without DOMA. And those same children who happen to be gay will be free to love and get married . . . but with the same federal protections, benefits and dignity as everyone else,” Edith Windsor told reporters. “We won everything we asked and hoped for.”
